Jeremy Gordon

February 21, 2014 –
A rock'n'roll singer doesn't always have to be ready to spit, howl, and scrap until he's laid bleeding on the club floor — but it certainly doesn't hurt. On "The Ache," the Shackeltons' singer Mark Redding sounds like a sailor lashed to the mast in the middle of a storm: He's exhausted, hysterical, and split between extremes, snarling and stuttering out pointed questions as his band breaks down behind him. After a few minutes slamming into everything in sight, the song builds to a call-and-response peroration where Iommi-tuned guitars collide with Redding's anguished refrain: "I wanna shake something!"Back in 2006, SPIN compared the Shackeltons to the Pixies, Fugazi, and Les Savy Fav. We lauded their debut self-titled album.

February 13, 2014 –
Telling a friend to "listen to Each Other" might become this generation's "Who’s on first?" The Montreal trio have a warm, familiar sound — think Guided by Voices with an attention span and Carl Wilson behind the mic — and take enough off-kilter turns to keep things exciting. "Your Ceiling Is My Floor" jangles out of your speakers like the last song at a pop-punk prom, its drawled vocal backing off at the right moments to reveal little details that score the fade to black. If Each Other's early recordings were filled with a nervous energy, this one shows they've got enough patience to slow down and, well, listen to each other.The band's debut full-length Being Elastic album will be available via Lefse Records on March 4. Listen to "Your Ceiling Is My Floor" below.

February 6, 2014 –
Even if the emo revival could be argued to be as much of an media-driven inside job as a tangible phenomenon, some of the music it refers to is worth the fuss. Enter Special Explosion, a Seattle-based quartet whose upcoming The Art of Mothering EP, due February 25 on Topshelf Records, draws on acts such as Built to Spill and the Anniversary. On their latest single, "Hide," the band's previously established riffage coagulates into rumbling sprawl and lurches along a herky-jerky rhythm as peals of guitars poke in and out of the landscape. It's tension pulled between polar extremes, that builds to a hushed admission of weakness ("I'm closing off to you") before a cathartic scream loops into Mascisian outro.

October 11, 2013 –
Frankie Rose is what you might call a music lifer, having played with just about every bloggable indie-pop band — Vivian Girls! Crystal Stilts! Dum Dum Girls! — before breaking through on her own with last year's Interstellar. On the eve of releasing her second full-length album, Herein Wild, late last month, the singer-songwriter prepared to headline the Bowery Ballroom in perhaps her biggest solo show to date, and a much-needed tune-up before embarking on a fall tour with Franz Ferdinand. We followed her before and after, tie-dying shirts at her Bushwick apartment, watching her direct a choir during soundcheck, taking in the show itself, and hearing all about it the next day at brunch. Here are the photos we got, with commentary from Frankie herself.